The irony is that copyright was originally created to give legal teeth to nobodies. Today, copyright is really only useful to the same 'friends of the king' that the original copyright law was written to legally de-fang.
Good idea, but its like asking foxes to write chicken-protection laws.
You just cant have freetrade after not free-trade. You have to both work towards it as a common goal, and transition your way off. Do many Americans really feel like America espouses free-trade as an end-all-be-all, because it seems to me like an idological dream along the lines of communism; good in theory, but unimplementable via legislation.
Free trade is supposed to equalize producers of actual product, isn't it? It doesn't seem fair that one side starts off with more money for "education" (advertising) and still subsidizes via tax breaks thanks to a large tax base and a good legal team.
There is a thin line between flamebait and just saying what you think is 'fair' these days.
If I have two students who both fail a test, but one doesn't care about passing, while the other wants to pass, I don't think its a double standard to prefer the attitude of the second.
Well said. Patents (and copyrights) were originally inteded to provide protection to small businesses or artists. Now those very same laws have simply been extended and convoluted enough to favour large corperations (friends of the king, in feudal-speak) with mountains of lawyers.
It breaks my heart when I hear somebody quote strong copyright or patent laws as a means of protecting Joe Average and his American Dream. The current state of these laws makes such a claim nearly indistinguishable from a romantic fantasy.
Former boss, and I was just contracting. I got the hell out of there as soon as it became obvious that they were set on asking for things that would eventually put them out of business.
Which is exactly why I like Nintendo. As the consoles get more and more PC-like, Nintendo sells a cheap console with freakin awesome niche market games, and makes most of those games themselves, so they control the whole 'release platform' strategy.
Sony and MS have to open their wallets to force 3rd party publishers into not releasing on PC (or at least delaying the PC port,) forcing die-hard gamers to have to pick up the console for exclusive titles.
Any true gamer would just the XBox on principle alone (because most games for it should be very portable to the PC with minimal effort, so what the fuck, release the titles at the same time.)
And the PS3? Those who are die-hard gamers have heard the suggested price points and laughable quotes..
I get your point, but its as unpractical as the answer, 'roll your own' to the 'are there any good X' questions programmers constantly poll the community for.
In a resource constrained sitution, sometimes you are forced to re-build the wheel. However, design patterns help people prevent having to re-invent it.
The question is; do I have to figure out *how* to build it myself, or are there recipies available out there already?
I appreciate those who work towards building smarter and better tools, but many of us simply don't have the resources and can't afford the uncertainty of re-examining the axioms of our work environment. In that scenario, its hard to argue that Design Patterns doesn't at least help people get from point A to point B without the trial and error routine.
Can somebody please give me a link to a rundown of how reflection improves software engineering? Is it for debugging purposes? To make it easier to write safe code for dynamic classes? I understand the concept, but I still havn't see the killer app.
Face it; software is now a commodity business. Using an automotive analogy, if you want to improve the performance or design of the internal combustion engine, go for it, but most software jobs these days only requires putting a kit together rather than having to push the envelope of science.
Therefore, sure, Computer Science is science, but understand that its pure semantics. Its good that enrollment in CS is down, because most of the CS students during the boom were more interested in engineering (applying known scientific discoveries) than the science itself.
The fact that employers looking for programmers ask for CS degrees is simply an indication that the industry is still fairly young. Software engineers used to come out of CS, but that trend is rightfully dwindling. Most programmers really should be trained in an engineering course, where the focus on economics and social responsibility are more pronounced.
I once worked for a company that had paid X amount of dollars for a turnkey, login based web application that you could hack by editing the cookie and changing the username. I demontrated how I could log in, edit the cookie, and suddently access the entire personal info database.
It is absolutely bone chilling to think that such programmers can actually find work, and twice as scary that even if you demonstrate this, it's often seen as something to fix in the future, not such a freaking easy and scary hack that the system should be taken down until the security mechanism was suitably re-written.
However, a sales guy knowing the technical details of a product is as unlikely as being allowed to *talk* to a developer at their company to explain their security mechanisms in the first place.
Sad state of affairs, really. Programming is all about abtraction; I wish people understood that when a programmer uses abstraction to centralize logic such as security, we'd all be better off if we could abtract across companies.
> Actually, San Andreas has much more driving than previous GTA games, especially if you do the side missions.
Less driving related to missions. The 'more driving' in SA is point A to point B driving, or, as you say, side missions.
I found there was less entertaining mission based driving.. driving people off the road, races, etc. Overall, I just didn't enjoy the story driven missions in SA nearly as much as I did in VC.
Also, WAY less fun geography; it felt like there were roughly *half* the fun ramps there were in VC, and it was much more difficult in SA to zip around and not smack into stuff unless you knew your route beforehand. In other words, SA's worldmap in the cities was too dense for my liking.
Funny you would compare them to Apple while Apple is making a killing in the market.
Dude, I really don't mind that Honda Civics or Pontiac Grand Ams or whatever it is today outsells everything out there.
But please do not mess with the niche players; if they did everything that fans were asking for, the companies in a million other markets (ie, MS, Sony) would beat them everytime. They will survive by not catering to you, but retaining a portion of the market just like Apple does... by doing what they think is best, and being judged on their product rather than having people who have checked out LONG AGO try and tell them what to do.
You clearly arn't interested in what they have been doing since the SNES, so why do you care? Download ZNES, enjoy, and guy the PS2. I'm not being arrogant, I fully respect your decision, just like you should respect that some of us actually LIKE what Nintendo has been doing since the SNES.
It helps, when you wish to have a convincing argument, that you check and make sure your points arn't 2 years old and easily refuted.
First of all, having played all 3 consoles, and liking games on them all, that the Cube is only slightly less powerful than the Xbox, and stomps the PS2 in the face (might have something to do with the PS2 coming out WAY before the other two.)
Second, it also helps to have actually played the games, or at least, claiming that you played the games.
Lastly, who on planet early needs a jukebox or browser for their console? You? Your neighbour? Do they not own a cd player or computer? Are they in a market for both, only with less features and clumsier interfaces?
> Ah well. Maybe Revolution will have more for general gamers like me...:/
No it won't. Nintendo will continue making consoles and games for gamers, while Sony and MS will cater to people who consider only wanting 2 or 3 games for a console justifies the purchase of one.
Jesus dude, you're going to drive them out of business, if you say you like the console, pick up more games because they're selling those to you at a loss!!!
I own a Gamecube. I own 15 games. Many crossplatform (and better looking than the PS2 ports, I might add.)
RE4? Check. Both primes? Check. GTA? Loved Vice City for the PC, but SA was really not worth it. Not much new, worse missions (less driving, what the hell. Edgy content doth not a replayable game make.) I bought the PS2 for Burnout 3, and so far, thats the only thing thats been worth it. I regret buying the PS2.
I really don't care at this point. Let the naysayers keep coming, but so far, the PS and the Xbox have just been expensive adventures in getting brand names beside your television.
My Gamecube has repaid itself over and over and over in terms of the amount of time I've spend in first and second party games.
And I'm capable of dissing first party GC games; Sunshine sucked, and Mario Kart just didn't have what it takes. I still think for the connaiseur gamer, Nintendo will continue having 'what it takes' for a long time to come, and their bottom line will reflect that.
Sony and MS can absorb the losses, so whatever. I've been keeping tabs on the trailers, but holy yawn, Batman. They're all the same games, but with *crowds* this time! Whoa!
1. Do a song and dance to make shareholders who can't understand true market forces and technical issues think you're doing everything you can to maximize profits.
2. Continue muttering, "The first hit is free," and 'handing out free copies' (ie, allowing weak hacks) under your breath to those who care to listen.
I don't *really* believe thats whats going on, but every time a story like this hits the wire, it just gets my mind going..
1. In order to update your OS (ie, download MS code) you first have to download other MS code.
2. This code then allows MS to determine if they want to send you code. (Which they just did, but that code was just to see if they want to send you more.)
3. If you don't want the code you just downloaded, you only wanted the second piece of code (ie, the ACTUAL security update), just disable that first piece of code once you've downloaded it.
The problem with folks like you is that you have your own experience, and then extrapolate it to others'.
If every desktop crashed on every video card if you tried to do anything that works it hard makes me wonder if my days of playing Quake3 under KDE on FreeBSD AND Linux were just some magical hallucination. (GeForce2 at the time.)
Ya got modded as a troll, but I think you're more likely simply a little misguided and/or hurt that you experienced difficulties?
I mean, I've had games that couldn't run under Windows with a good graphics card, but that doens't cause me to make the laughable claim that Windows just crashes under intensive graphical goodness.
They're computers running software; they're failable, and sometimes you just get stuck with a lemon. Not that things are easy to setup in Linux, but to claim you cant create a stable desktop and gaming environment is flat out wrong.
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The irony is that copyright was originally created to give legal teeth to nobodies. Today, copyright is really only useful to the same 'friends of the king' that the original copyright law was written to legally de-fang.
Good idea, but its like asking foxes to write chicken-protection laws.
You just cant have freetrade after not free-trade. You have to both work towards it as a common goal, and transition your way off. Do many Americans really feel like America espouses free-trade as an end-all-be-all, because it seems to me like an idological dream along the lines of communism; good in theory, but unimplementable via legislation.
Free trade is supposed to equalize producers of actual product, isn't it? It doesn't seem fair that one side starts off with more money for "education" (advertising) and still subsidizes via tax breaks thanks to a large tax base and a good legal team.
There is a thin line between flamebait and just saying what you think is 'fair' these days.
If I have two students who both fail a test, but one doesn't care about passing, while the other wants to pass, I don't think its a double standard to prefer the attitude of the second.
Well said. Patents (and copyrights) were originally inteded to provide protection to small businesses or artists. Now those very same laws have simply been extended and convoluted enough to favour large corperations (friends of the king, in feudal-speak) with mountains of lawyers.
It breaks my heart when I hear somebody quote strong copyright or patent laws as a means of protecting Joe Average and his American Dream. The current state of these laws makes such a claim nearly indistinguishable from a romantic fantasy.
Whatever helps you sleep at night man. It was a grammatical error that even looks stupid to me. Who do you think you're helping?
Now, as for a more legitimate concern, can we stop posting AC?
Good point!
Former boss, and I was just contracting. I got the hell out of there as soon as it became obvious that they were set on asking for things that would eventually put them out of business.
Which is exactly why I like Nintendo. As the consoles get more and more PC-like, Nintendo sells a cheap console with freakin awesome niche market games, and makes most of those games themselves, so they control the whole 'release platform' strategy.
..
Sony and MS have to open their wallets to force 3rd party publishers into not releasing on PC (or at least delaying the PC port,) forcing die-hard gamers to have to pick up the console for exclusive titles.
Any true gamer would just the XBox on principle alone (because most games for it should be very portable to the PC with minimal effort, so what the fuck, release the titles at the same time.)
And the PS3? Those who are die-hard gamers have heard the suggested price points and laughable quotes
I get your point, but its as unpractical as the answer, 'roll your own' to the 'are there any good X' questions programmers constantly poll the community for.
In a resource constrained sitution, sometimes you are forced to re-build the wheel. However, design patterns help people prevent having to re-invent it.
The question is; do I have to figure out *how* to build it myself, or are there recipies available out there already?
I appreciate those who work towards building smarter and better tools, but many of us simply don't have the resources and can't afford the uncertainty of re-examining the axioms of our work environment. In that scenario, its hard to argue that Design Patterns doesn't at least help people get from point A to point B without the trial and error routine.
Can somebody please give me a link to a rundown of how reflection improves software engineering? Is it for debugging purposes? To make it easier to write safe code for dynamic classes? I understand the concept, but I still havn't see the killer app.
Face it; software is now a commodity business. Using an automotive analogy, if you want to improve the performance or design of the internal combustion engine, go for it, but most software jobs these days only requires putting a kit together rather than having to push the envelope of science.
Therefore, sure, Computer Science is science, but understand that its pure semantics. Its good that enrollment in CS is down, because most of the CS students during the boom were more interested in engineering (applying known scientific discoveries) than the science itself.
The fact that employers looking for programmers ask for CS degrees is simply an indication that the industry is still fairly young. Software engineers used to come out of CS, but that trend is rightfully dwindling. Most programmers really should be trained in an engineering course, where the focus on economics and social responsibility are more pronounced.
I once worked for a company that had paid X amount of dollars for a turnkey, login based web application that you could hack by editing the cookie and changing the username. I demontrated how I could log in, edit the cookie, and suddently access the entire personal info database.
It is absolutely bone chilling to think that such programmers can actually find work, and twice as scary that even if you demonstrate this, it's often seen as something to fix in the future, not such a freaking easy and scary hack that the system should be taken down until the security mechanism was suitably re-written.
Maybe it was secure.
However, a sales guy knowing the technical details of a product is as unlikely as being allowed to *talk* to a developer at their company to explain their security mechanisms in the first place.
Sad state of affairs, really. Programming is all about abtraction; I wish people understood that when a programmer uses abstraction to centralize logic such as security, we'd all be better off if we could abtract across companies.
> Actually, San Andreas has much more driving than previous GTA games, especially if you do the side missions.
.. driving people off the road, races, etc. Overall, I just didn't enjoy the story driven missions in SA nearly as much as I did in VC.
Less driving related to missions. The 'more driving' in SA is point A to point B driving, or, as you say, side missions.
I found there was less entertaining mission based driving
Also, WAY less fun geography; it felt like there were roughly *half* the fun ramps there were in VC, and it was much more difficult in SA to zip around and not smack into stuff unless you knew your route beforehand. In other words, SA's worldmap in the cities was too dense for my liking.
Oh yeah, good point, GoW was a fantastic game.
Funny you would compare them to Apple while Apple is making a killing in the market.
... by doing what they think is best, and being judged on their product rather than having people who have checked out LONG AGO try and tell them what to do.
Dude, I really don't mind that Honda Civics or Pontiac Grand Ams or whatever it is today outsells everything out there.
But please do not mess with the niche players; if they did everything that fans were asking for, the companies in a million other markets (ie, MS, Sony) would beat them everytime. They will survive by not catering to you, but retaining a portion of the market just like Apple does
You clearly arn't interested in what they have been doing since the SNES, so why do you care? Download ZNES, enjoy, and guy the PS2. I'm not being arrogant, I fully respect your decision, just like you should respect that some of us actually LIKE what Nintendo has been doing since the SNES.
It helps, when you wish to have a convincing argument, that you check and make sure your points arn't 2 years old and easily refuted.
First of all, having played all 3 consoles, and liking games on them all, that the Cube is only slightly less powerful than the Xbox, and stomps the PS2 in the face (might have something to do with the PS2 coming out WAY before the other two.)
Second, it also helps to have actually played the games, or at least, claiming that you played the games.
Lastly, who on planet early needs a jukebox or browser for their console? You? Your neighbour? Do they not own a cd player or computer? Are they in a market for both, only with less features and clumsier interfaces?
> Ah well. Maybe Revolution will have more for general gamers like me... :/
No it won't. Nintendo will continue making consoles and games for gamers, while Sony and MS will cater to people who consider only wanting 2 or 3 games for a console justifies the purchase of one.
Jesus dude, you're going to drive them out of business, if you say you like the console, pick up more games because they're selling those to you at a loss!!!
The whole industry is drinking this Koolaid.
...
I own a Gamecube. I own 15 games. Many crossplatform (and better looking than the PS2 ports, I might add.)
RE4? Check. Both primes? Check. GTA? Loved Vice City for the PC, but SA was really not worth it. Not much new, worse missions (less driving, what the hell. Edgy content doth not a replayable game make.) I bought the PS2 for Burnout 3, and so far, thats the only thing thats been worth it. I regret buying the PS2.
I really don't care at this point. Let the naysayers keep coming, but so far, the PS and the Xbox have just been expensive adventures in getting brand names beside your television.
My Gamecube has repaid itself over and over and over in terms of the amount of time I've spend in first and second party games.
Smash bros, Pikman, Eternal Darkness, Wind Waker, Ikagura
And I'm capable of dissing first party GC games; Sunshine sucked, and Mario Kart just didn't have what it takes. I still think for the connaiseur gamer, Nintendo will continue having 'what it takes' for a long time to come, and their bottom line will reflect that.
Sony and MS can absorb the losses, so whatever. I've been keeping tabs on the trailers, but holy yawn, Batman. They're all the same games, but with *crowds* this time! Whoa!
Given the stock price to earnings, they should be doing *something* with that money!
The exec can't work? No golf until the case is settled?
1. Do a song and dance to make shareholders who can't understand true market forces and technical issues think you're doing everything you can to maximize profits.
..
2. Continue muttering, "The first hit is free," and 'handing out free copies' (ie, allowing weak hacks) under your breath to those who care to listen.
I don't *really* believe thats whats going on, but every time a story like this hits the wire, it just gets my mind going
So:
1. In order to update your OS (ie, download MS code) you first have to download other MS code.
2. This code then allows MS to determine if they want to send you code. (Which they just did, but that code was just to see if they want to send you more.)
3. If you don't want the code you just downloaded, you only wanted the second piece of code (ie, the ACTUAL security update), just disable that first piece of code once you've downloaded it.
4. Download the second piece of code.
I am snarfing my milk over here.
Maybe they're finally responding to the charges of security through obscurity with .. insecurity through outright clariry and legibility?
The problem with folks like you is that you have your own experience, and then extrapolate it to others'.
If every desktop crashed on every video card if you tried to do anything that works it hard makes me wonder if my days of playing Quake3 under KDE on FreeBSD AND Linux were just some magical hallucination. (GeForce2 at the time.)
Ya got modded as a troll, but I think you're more likely simply a little misguided and/or hurt that you experienced difficulties?
I mean, I've had games that couldn't run under Windows with a good graphics card, but that doens't cause me to make the laughable claim that Windows just crashes under intensive graphical goodness.
They're computers running software; they're failable, and sometimes you just get stuck with a lemon. Not that things are easy to setup in Linux, but to claim you cant create a stable desktop and gaming environment is flat out wrong.